The first modern trampoline was built by George Nissen and Larry Griswold around 1934. Nissen was a gymnastics and diving competitor and Griswold was a tumbler on the gymnastics team, both at the University of Iowa, USA. They had observed trapeze artists using a tight net to add entertainment value to their performance and experimented by stretching a piece of canvas, in which they had inserted grommets along each side, to an angle iron frame by means of coiled springs. It was initially used to train tumblers but soon became popular in its own right. Nissen explained that the name came from the Spanish ‘trampolín’ meaning a diving board. He had heard the word on a demonstration tour in Mexico in the late 1930s and decided to use an anglicised form as the trademark for the apparatus. 

We will be joined at the Bournemouth Vintage Fayre by Tigger’s Trampolines of Bournemouth, who will be supplying their fully enclosed trampolines and providing a safe and fun outlet for your little ones’ energy!